You Let Me In - Camilla Bruce Page 0,28

you looking at us?” His eyes widened in astonishment. “Were you touching yourself?” His lips split in a wide smile, his laughter rose above the treetops. “You are really the most twisted person I’ve ever met, Cassie. Do you know what people like you are called? Perverts,” he spat the word. “That is what they’re called.”

It was then that I hit him.

It happened so fast: a flash and a blur, and maybe—just maybe—an aiding hand coming in from behind me, adding some speed and power to the blow.

Tommy Tipp, taken aback, fell backward into the underbrush, his expression a mixture of surprise and disbelief.

In the underbrush was a stone, half hidden by the ferns, and on the stone was a sharp jutting edge, like a dagger, which Tommy’s head hit very hard. It sliced through his temple and into his brain.

I don’t believe he suffered much.

But there I was, broken and crushed—a widow before I even got married—looking down at the corpse of Tommy Tipp, his blood a slick pool on the stone.

* * *

You would be confused at this point, I guess. This all happened long before you were born, yet you have met Tommy Tipp many times. He was my husband for over a decade, so how could he have died at twenty-four? Tommy was not what you thought he was, but then I have told you that already.

If you keep turning the pages, I will tell you just what he was.

XIII

After Tommy had fallen, Pepper-Man and I stood quiet for a while, just looking at his body draped across the ferns, his head resting on the bloody stone, golden hair matted with red. I felt bereft more than anything else. A shiny dream had been taken from me, and I was left with a problem the size of a well-grown man. Not that I didn’t mourn him, mind you, but all of that came later. Right there, right then, it was bereft that I felt, mingled and mixed with a drizzle of shock.

“Is he really dead?” I asked my friend, hoping against all odds that there was still a spark of life in there.

“He is.” Pepper-Man’s naked toe touched the hem of Tommy’s jeans.

“What do we do now?”

“We have to dispose of his remains. It would not do if some stroller came by.”

“Shouldn’t we alert someone?”

“Do you wish to alert someone?”

“No … not if it can be helped.” A fresh fear bloomed in my stomach; I envisioned myself imprisoned for life; saw my mother’s furious gaze before my inner eye and Dr. Martin’s head shaking with disappointment. No more playing in the woods for me. No more Mara. No more Pepper-Man—

“Not to worry,” said Pepper-Man then. “My sisters in the brook will take care of him for you.”

“Really?”

“For sure.” And then we got to it.

Pepper-Man took hold of Tommy’s torso, pried his head from the stone. I took care of the legs, although Pepper-Man was so strong that my contribution was mostly for show. We carried him across the love spot, and my state of mind was such that I didn’t even reflect on the fact until afterward, that my dead lover’s body was carried across the same patch of soil that so recently had seen our naked backs and tasted the salts of our passion.

When we came to the brook, we put Tommy down. His mouth was open, jaw slack. His temple was a mess of torn skin and gristle. His blue eyes stared empty out in the air. He wasn’t Tommy anymore, was some ragdoll impersonation, empty of essence—of life.

“Will they take him to the mound?” I asked.

“No”—Pepper-Man shook his head—“this one is not for us.”

“How can you tell?” I could somehow envision it: Tommy turning into a troll, or a ram-horned faerie with cloven feet.

“He is not strong enough to join Faerie.” Pepper-Man’s foot was on Tommy’s hipbone, ready to push him into the dancing stream.

“Or you don’t want him there.” I was suddenly overcome with suspicion.

“If you ask, I do believe you can do better,” Pepper-Man admitted as Tommy went out in the water.

He dipped, but didn’t sink; rose to the surface, face down. The stream tugged at his clothes, ready to take him further down—but then the hands came, pale and thin, reaching out of the rushing stream. Seven of them, maybe eight, they grabbed hold of the body and pulled him under. Soon Tommy Tipp was there no more.

As if he’d never been there at all.

You see why I have reason